“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The Sumari abilities are highly creative ones, however. To a large extent they have been inhibited in your society. I have been speaking of them here so that each individual can learn to recognize his or her own degree of Sumariness. The playful, creative elements of personality can then be released. These qualities are particularly important as they add to, temper, or enhance the primary characteristics of the other families of consciousness.

Sometimes you act as though one ability contradicts another. You think “I cannot be a good parent and a sexual partner to my mate at the same time.” To those who feel this way a definite contradiction seems implied. A woman might feel that the qualities of a mother almost stand in opposition to those of an exuberant sex mate. A man might imagine that fatherhood meant providing an excellent home and income. He might think that “aggressiveness,”⁶ competition, and emotional aloofness were required to perform that role. These would be considered in opposition to the qualities of love, understanding, and emotional support “required” of a husband. In actuality, of course, no such contradictions apply. In the same way, however, you often seem to feel that your identity is dependent upon a certain highly specific role, until other qualities quite your own seem threatening. They almost seem to be unselflike.⁷

To some degree you feel the same way when you encounter the concept of probable selves, or of counterparts. It is as though you had an unlimited bank of abilities and characteristics from which to draw, and yet were afraid of doing so — fearing that any addition could make you less instead of more. If all of this goes on personally, as you choose one melody and call it yourself, then perhaps you can begin to see the mass creative aspects in terms of civilizations that seem to rise and fall.

In the last few sentences there is an intuitive “definition” of probable and reincarnational selves, and counterparts, in relationship to the self that you know. In your case, however, you can change your own pacing, add variations, or even begin an entirely new composition if you choose to. Now many people have done this in very simple, mundane ways by suddenly deciding to use abilities they had earlier ignored. A man of letters, for instance, at the age of 40 suddenly remembers his old love of carpentry, reads do-it-yourself manuals, and begins his own home repairs. After disdaining such activities as beneath him for years, he suddenly discovers an intimate relationship with earth and its goods, and this appreciation adds to words that before may have been as dry as ash.

“Give us a moment … Do not buy a house with a dirt cellar. Do not buy a house heated by oil. The fumes are not good. A house facing the east is good in your section of the country. Use your psychic abilities to ascertain the house’s atmosphere, by all means — and no matter how fine it seems, do not buy it if you do not feel comfortable inside. It should have a fireplace because of the reminders of the hearth. It should not be sided with aluminum or other metal. In your area it should not face the south. This also has to do with the ways you use energy, so these are not general precepts for others to follow. Check with your pendulums.